Robotic mowing technology in turfgrass management: Past, present, and future

Abstract

Robotic mowing equipment has rapidly increased in availability worldwide, but the first developed concepts for automating the mowing process are nearly 100 years old. The first attempt to commercialize a robotic mower was in the 1950s, with continued attempts to launch commercial products over subsequent decades. The two factors that most limited the evolution of robotic mowers over time were positioning (precise localization in space) and sensing (identification of objects surrounding the working robot). In the United States until 2023, technology was largely limited to wire-bound random movement robotic mowers. In 2023, global positioning system–real-time kinematic (GPS-RTK)-based positioning was launched in the United States, which was launched months earlier in Europe, allowing for precise positioning of robots and systematic movement within a work area, which increased efficiency. The addition of computer vision-based or light detection and ranging positioning and sensing that is currently being launched by new companies in 2024 will allow for simultaneous positioning and sensing, referred to as simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM). The near future of positioning and sensing will likely be a combination of GPS-RTK merged with vision-based SLAM to improve accuracy when GPS-RTK signal is limited.